


Not Anywhere

by imperfectkreis



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Really short fills for Arcade and an older MCourier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jack’s big. Huge, even. With broad shoulders and a bit of a gut, though the longer he bounds through the Wasteland as ‘the Courier’ the harder he gets. The muscle cords take to his arms first, though. Then, Arcade knows, because he was a doctor before he was a researcher; before he was a hapless target for bullets and knife wounds; muscle defines beneath the layer of fat first. The soft, fatty tissue is the last thing to go. On Jack, though, it's clinging to his hips and his belly for dear life, unwilling to check out.

Doesn't bother Arcade. Not at all. Because Arcade’s big too. In the shoulders if not the gut. Last week, when they were trying to cool themselves with damp washcloths in Jack’s cramped Novac room, the Courier teased Arcade that he was all skin and bones. Jack pinched at Arcade’s ribs and laughed like some big joke.

Neither of them are laughing now.

They’re too far from the Strip to make it back in time, so they've ducked into a little shack with a bloodstained mattress. At least, Arcade hopes it's just blood. Jack throws his coat over the stain and smiles softly at Arcade, saying he is sure that the place isn’t up to Arcade’s exacting standards.

“We’ll make due,” Arcade huffs.

Only then does Arcade realize they are to share the mattress while ED-E stands guard. Its humming song will keep him up all night. That and the scent of agave on Jack.

Shucking the top of his armor and the plates around his legs, Jack climbs onto the mattress first, pressing his back to the wooden wall of the shack. He makes himself as small as possible, though that's still awfully big. His pipboy light is still on, turning the gray in his hair amber through the darkness.

“Don't need to be shy,” but there's a hesitation. Like maybe Jack is shy himself.

Arcade takes his coat off. Leaves everything else on. Well, not the boots, and after the boots, he decides to take off his belt too. He doesn't know which way around he's supposed to lay, with his back or his face to Jack, either option is equally daunting. Arousing. Suggestive.

“Don't mean to make you uncomfortable either,” Jack concedes.

When Arcade crawls into bed, Jack throws his arm, heavy, covered in ever-lightening hairs, over Arcade’s waist. With the pipboy light out, they can't see each other’s faces. Arcade pretends like he can see Jack’s whiskey-brown eyes.

The pad of a single finger presses against Arcade’s spine. It's not by accident. Jack had to lift up Arcade’s shirt just a fraction to do it. To touch their skin together, however brief.

“What are we doing, Jack?” Arcade breaks the spell. Jack leaves his arm draped over Arcade’s waist, but doesn't touch his vertebra any longer. 

Jack breathes in. “I shouldn't.”

“Why not?” Arcade realizes the petulance in his voice too late.

“Got someone, back home.”

“Tell me about them, then. Maybe it'll break me of this infatuation.” It doesn't embarrass Arcade to voice his opinion on Jack’s relative attractiveness. It's just so apparent, there for all to see.

Even in the darkness, Arcade can feel Jack smile. He just knows it.

“He's everything. He's perfect. Sweet on me and the dogs both. He gives them Brahmin jerky when he thinks I'm not looking. He says the jerky isn’t for me because my heart isn't what it used to be, but it’s still his.”

“He's not perfect,” Arcade interjects. “He's not here.”

Jack shrugs, “he's not anywhere, not anymore, but it doesn't mean he's still not home.”

Arcade feels his stomach drop so far into his bowels he can't even say that he's sorry. That he's an asshole.

“Just...can't. Not yet. Isn't you, though, Arcade.” Jack pauses. “Mercy, I want you. But I can't.”

Arcade pretends he's fallen asleep. He thinks of Jack having a fair-haired lover with a broad smile and small hands. He doesn't know why that's the image he gets. Maybe because that's a man who clearly isn't himself.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wait, just wait.” The way Jack lets the words fall from his lips sounds like he’s trying to soothe a skittering calf. Arcade balks at the mere suggestion he needs to be calmed. Because this situation doesn’t call for calm. There’s a pack of fiends, still wound like tight springs from their latest round of injectables, trying to fill Jack and Arcade with buckshot and 5.56s. There are half a dozen of them against just the two. The shitty barrier of tires and sheet metal isn’t going to hold out for very long. There is a lot, a lot, about to go wrong. Arcade doesn’t want to die in the desert. He doesn’t want to die at all.

Jack doesn’t say anything more, just going about reloading his gun with thick fingers marred by callouses and cuts. One of his pinky fingers has a black nail that he tries to keep bandaged, waiting for it to fall off so a new one can grow in. He’d smashed his finger in one of Michael Angelo’s shop vices in about the clumsiest maneuver Arcade has ever seen. Jack lost the bandage sometime in the firefight and they haven’t exactly had the time to get it covered again. Still, it doesn’t slow down his reload time any as he slots the bullets into the chamber.

“Keep your head down, darlin’. We’ll be alright.”

Arcade really wishes Jack wouldn’t call him that. Seriously. He’s terrible.

But Jack’s also sort of great because he only sticks his head up for a few seconds but Arcade hears (and feels) two rounds from that terrifying pistol Jack uses and two screams in the distance. Fiends, in general, shriek particularly viciously because, well, if they’re high, they’ve got no sense of self-preservation or modesty or trying to keep up appearances. Arcade clearly doesn’t either because when Jack sits down again with his back against the barrier he’s all smiles and brown eyes and Arcade is left a little dumbstruck. 

“Told you it would be okay,” Jack’s clearly pleased with himself.

“There are still four left,” Arcade corrects.

Jack shrugs. “And I got four bullets left too. Convenient.” 

This time when Jack gets up to shoot it’s for a longer duration. Arcade definitely does not look at Jack’s ass as he hunches over the barrier to aim and fire. There’s a lot of dirt on the back of his pants. The pants are getting too loose too as Jack sheds weight. It’s not Arcade’s job to mother-hen him. Just patch him up when he gets hit, occasionally provide witty banter, and keep Jack from accidentally heading off in the wrong direction when he gets turned around. 

There are four shots, three screams, and the clang of a bullet hitting into the metal siding of the fiends’ shack. Jack must have missed one. He flops back down to the floor, still grinning. “Got em.”

“You missed one,” Arcade just won’t let him win.

“You counted wrong. I was trying to let you out of your mistake gracefully by firing that fourth shot.”

Arcade scowls. When Jack tries to wipe the dirt away from Arcade’s cheek with even messier fingers, Arcade recoils. Jack doesn’t stop smiling though, commenting it’s best they continue on to their destination. They’re losing light. 

“You wasted a bullet, then.”

Jack doesn’t seem to mind.

When Jack stands, he offers Arcade a hand up. Arcade tries, unsuccessfully to brush the dust from his coat. Jack checks his pipboy and actually gets the direction of travel right, so that’s one less thing for Arcade to do. He trots up behind the courier, trying to make sure they walk side by side.


End file.
